Le Cœur Résonant: BeCome Touch(ed) with Anna Noctuelle (all levels)

Doors open: 6:30PM

An evening of conscious touch

Most of us learned touch as something that arrives from outside: wanted or unwanted, earned or withstood. We rarely learned it as something we offer ourselves. This evening begins there. Conscious touch is your full attention meeting skin, unhurried and undefended. Before any partner, before anyone else, the hands return to the body they belong to.

You will begin with your own touch and the simple, often unfamiliar question of how you actually want to be met. From there, the evening explores touch as a felt language, pressure, warmth, stillness, intention, attention and what each of these does to a nervous system that has spent years braced. The body reads touch before the mind does. Given enough care, it begins to unclench. The breath lengthens. The places held tight for a long time start to yield. The places rarely touched are not forgotten by accident, they are the ones that have waited the longest.

Should you choose, the evening extends into mindful touch with another, slow, consensual, fully attended. Two bodies finding one frequency.

You will leave with a more honest sense of what your body asks for, and a way of meeting it that does not wait on anyone else. Devotion to the body that survived everything you have survived.

You stop waiting to be touched as though you matter, because you already do.

Come back into the body.

Conscious touch:

• Lowers cortisol. Slow, sustained touch reliably reduces circulating cortisol, the body's primary stress hormone.
• Raises oxytocin. Warm, attentive contact triggers oxytocin release, which is associated with calm, trust, and reduced threat response.
• Shifts the autonomic state from sympathetic to parasympathetic. It moves the body out of "fight or flight" readiness and into "rest and digest," the state in which the body recovers and repairs.
• Improves vagal tone / heart rate variability. Gentle touch activates the vagus nerve, slowing heart rate and raising heart rate variability — a recognised marker of nervous-system resilience and the capacity to self-regulate.
• Lowers blood pressure and heart rate. A direct consequence of the parasympathetic shift.
  Slows and deepens breathing. Bracing keeps the breath shallow and high in the chest; safe touch lengthens the exhale, which itself further down-regulates the stress response.
• Reduces muscular tension. Chronic guarding — held shoulders, jaw, pelvis — begins to release when the body registers it no longer needs to protect.
• Releases serotonin and dopamine. Affective touch is linked to increases in both, supporting mood and a felt sense of wellbeing.
• Improves sleep. The drop in cortisol and rise in parasympathetic activity make it easier to fall and stay asleep.
• Strengthens interoception. Attentive touch sharpens the brain's ability to read internal signals from the body — the foundation of knowing what you actually feel and need.
• Reduces felt loneliness and isolation. Touch is one of the most direct routes the nervous system has, to register connection and safety.

What to bring:
- yourself and compassion
- an eye pillow or eye mask
- aromatherapy oil if you wish

All levels welcome

About the educator:
Anna is a long-term dance and somatic practitioner with an M.A. in Linguistics  whose work draws on her studies particularly within Buddhist, Sufi, Tantric traditions and modern psychology. She is a Reiki Master, trained in Core Shamanism, and a graduate of Tantra Teacher Training in Spain who works as a somatic, relationship and intimacy coach. Her movement background spans Ballet Somatic and Expressive Movement Practices alongside trauma work. Anna teaches Shibari and is kink- and trauma-informed.

Tickets are non-refundable, as once they’re sold we often have a waiting list and are happy to help contact those guests to assist with reselling where possible🎟️💛. For our regularly occurring classes, we’re also very happy to rebook your ticket for a different date when needed 📅✨